Room has an incredibly interesting concept. Jack has lived his entire life – five years – in one 12×12 room. He and his mother are secluded and confined, but Jack is happy, because he’s never known anything different. But as you get more involved in the story, you realise just what is going on in Jack and Ma’s lives: Ma was kidnapped and is being held prisoner, and Jack is a product of that.

The book is divided into four sections. The first two sections are set (almost) entirely within Room – they’re a sweet but ultimately disturbing portrayal of Jack and Ma’s life: sweet because Jack and Ma clearly love each other, and Ma is doing everything she can to give Jack a “normal” upbringing, even given the constraints. Jack watches Dora the Explorer, and measures himself against the wall, and plays with his toys. Other than the fact that he doesn’t know that there is a world outside Room, he is a normal 5-year-old.

At the end of the first half, Jack and Ma escape, and it’s in the second half that things really start going off the rails. For all that Room was a dysfunctional situation, it was normal and functional within that situation. Suddenly everything Jack has ever known is taken away and he is catapulted into a world that he thought was fictional until just a few weeks ago.

What interested me in the second half was not as much Jack and Ma’s reactions to being free – although I think they are incredibly believable. I was more interested in other people’s reactions: the reporters, implying that Ma was suffering from Stockholm Syndrome; Ma’s mother, who couldn’t believe that Jack didn’t have Legos, Jack’s aunt and uncle, who took Jack into a mall only a few weeks after the escape. It’s my old interest in assumptions: the things that we don’t realise that other people don’t know. It’s especially interesting with Jack, because he’s familiar with pop culture (they had a TV in Room) but he’s not familiar with social conventions (like having to pay for things at a store).

It’s a disturbing book, as any book about kidnapping, rape, etc., should be, but it’s definitely worth reading. Jack is a more reliable unreliable narrator than some: he doesn’t know what’s going on, but the reader usually does, with very little detective work. Ma is a good mother – one of the best in fiction – and incredibly sympathetic. By the end, you know that Ma and Jack are going to be fine (and the journey to fine is worth it).